A Witch's Beauty (Daughters of Arianne 2)

With a curious look, David picked it up out of her palm, brought it to his nose, inhaled. It made his eyes close again. There was such a tiredness to his face, Mina didn't question her need to reach out again. This time she laid her hand over his free hand, braced on the ground. Just resting there, making contact.

"Goddess," he murmured, still not opening his eyes. "It's childhood, in a single smell. Why is it we never get away from it? From wanting the things we wanted as kids? Not the specifics. Not the bike with the chrome plating or the G.I. Joe. The sense of everything being the way it should be."

"Being safe. Loved. Never alone. Never going anywhere without the sense of someone watching out for you. Or standing beside you, holding your hand."

He opened his eyes. "How did you know that?"

"I've been providing potions for a long time. It's what they all want, in one form or another, even if they look for it the wrong way."

And even though she'd never had it, she'd recently wondered if it was something imprinted on the soul at birth and her knowledge of it had simply lain dormant, unused. Because in the past couple of days, it had surged up like an unleashed force of nature, overwhelming her senses as if to make up for lost time. It was there, every time he took her in his arms and she felt a hunger to get so close to him she'd tear him open to crawl inside.

He bit into the cookie without further hesitation. As he chewed, his face changed. "Oh, holy Goddess." He swallowed. "Are there more?"

It was such a relief to have him back, she didn't realize he'd frozen until she brought out the next cookie. "What?" She looked around quickly, seeking the threat.

"You smiled. You smiled at me."

"What-" But he'd caught her upper arms, lifting her onto her knees, and was kissing her. She couldn't form words when he did that, let alone thoughts. Not when his hand slid under her head, cupped the back of it, holding her to him in a way as effective as the most potent binding spell.

There was a desperation to his kiss, though, an urgency that made her wonder if he was going to take her right here on the sand. But there was something beyond sexual to it, something so strong, it was as if he was seeking to find her soul-or maybe his own-in that kiss. Maybe he had the urge to get so close he could crawl inside of her, too.

His breath had the flavor of the freshly baked cookies, making her understand instantly why it had been one of his favorite foods. She revised her opinion on sharing them with him. If he thought a few kisses were going to earn him the right to eat all the rest, before she had even had one, well...

When at last he reined himself in, she didn't know who was more shaken, though she noted the tremor in the hand he ran down her arm, strumming nerve endings there. His hand was sticky with the cookie, leaving a tiny brown streak from melted chocolate.

"I gave her the last napkin." She cleared her throat, pressing moist lips together. "So you'll just have to lick your fingers."

Lifting her arm, he put his lips over the spot on her skin instead, his tongue teasing it away, mouth caressing her as her breath left her. When he raised his head, he gave her a small smile of his own. "If you won't do it for me, I guess I'll manage. Did you say there were more of them?"

"I'll share some," she said, taking firm possession of the bag.

They walked together as he ate them, with her charming each one to ensure he could taste them. In the end, she only took two, discovering it was more important to her to help him establish some distance from that dark place in his mind. But she did have questions. She managed to walk a couple of miles with him in companionable silence before she asked the one uppermost in her mind.

"If Diane is... was, your mother, that means your mother died at the same time you did. Right?"

"I'm not that person anymore," he said curtly. "It doesn't matter."

After the wary peace of the past few minutes, the crisp response brought her up short. He'd actually used his you will not defy me angel voice, as if he thought that would shut her down. And after she had charmed cookies for him.

It took him several moments to notice she was no longer walking with him, and he turned and returned to her. "What is it?"

"That was a stupid, entirely human thing to say," she said. "I don't think you need any more cookies."

He raised a brow, looking startled. "It's-"

"You can be as high-handed with me as you want to be; that was just denial. A soul is comprised of every experience it's ever accumulated. She's a pregnant sixteen-year-old, but she's also the soul of a woman whose son killed himself at fourteen. And it seems as if that had to do with your sister. You couldn't stop it, but your mother ignored it, which is why Diane tried to take away your guilt."

He gave her a dark look, but when she stubbornly refused to move out of the shade of the Joshua tree where she'd planted herself, he let out an oath, paced away. Then circled back and glared at her.

"Do you know in many tribal societies the age of sexual maturity-twelve or thirteen-is the age of manhood or womanhood? Some scholars think that's why teenagers in industrialized nations are so troubled. Because they're denied their natural right to assume the mantle of adult responsibility at the age they should."

"Nice culture lesson. I don't have the whole story, do I?"

His gaze snapped back to her, and that muscle in his jaw flexed, giving her the answer. "It was a large part of it," he said at last.

"I can't go to a Memory Keeper and wrest the worst memory you have out of your head," she said, watching him stiffen in surprise. "I may not know everything about angels, but I know some things."

"I can see that." He sat down on a rock, gestured. Surprised, she came to sit at his side as he spread one wing behind her, providing her a comfortable backrest. "What's bothering me is the Schism's purpose for doing all this."

"We'll likely encounter the reason for it at another time. Magic, for all its capriciousness, can be deadly predictable that way."

"Deadly. Great choice of words," he said dryly.

She pressed her lips together. "You already know the nature of magic, the way it works. You're trying to avoid the issue."

"Maybe." He shrugged.

"You're going to get mad if I keep asking about this, aren't you?"

"You can ask me anything, Mina. Always." Even as the wing brushed her arm, a quick, reassuring caress, a corner of his mouth curved up. "And yes, I know that answer doesn't guarantee I won't get mad. But you have such a tactful and soothing way about you, I'm sure I can keep it down to a simmer."

She ignored that. "W

hat was she like?"

"She was my twin. My heart." David's gaze adjusted upward, to the sun, and she realized angels could look directly at the blinding white orb. It turned his brown eyes the amber of hell-fire. "I should have killed him the first time he laid a hand on her. But she protected me. She was better than me. Stronger. I didn't save her."

She'd meant his mother, but he'd just given her something she didn't expect. Anna had suggested he'd dealt with a great deal of his past in his first years in the Heavens, so Mina found it odd that this part of him was still so raw. As if he'd merely buried it in a shallow grave inside of him, the corpse of it festering, tormenting him.

"It sounds like she wouldn't let you save her." Touching his arm, she drew his eyes to her again. That fiery color, too close a cousin to red, bothered her. "What if I won't let you save me, David? What then? At what point do you deal with this, once and for all?"

"How do you deal with it, Mina? You tell me." He touched the scars on her face, passed over her brow and withdrew before she could push him away. "How do you fight an enemy who takes the form of a memory? How do you ever accept the unacceptable?"

She of course had no answer to that. While she wasn't pleased that he'd pried into her past without her consent, she had to admit she'd rather him find out from a Memory Keeper than having to tell him herself. Some memories didn't need revisiting, because the life she'd led since then reminded her of it every day. He was right. That was the problem.

"How do you think it can be done?"

David studied her, then leaned in. Tightening the curve of his wing, he slid her forward on the rock, showing he had the strength to move her with the feathered appendage. When his face was close above hers, she could see the fires still simmering in his gaze, demons of his past mixed with the power he held now, an uncertain mix. "You can drown out the sound of it in a very... adult... way..." His attention dropped to her mouth, and her lips parted, despite herself, desire unexpectedly spreading a warm hand across her lower belly. "Or you can do it the child's way."

He was too quick for her. It only took a second to register the shift in his expression, the flash of mischief, but in the time she grabbed at him and the paper bag, which still held her two cookies, he was aloft, beyond her reach. So he thought.